


Desolate and Solace

by gyunikum



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-War, mentions of Collins/OFC relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 23:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12119562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyunikum/pseuds/gyunikum
Summary: Two times Collins met Farrier after the war; one time a corpse, and one time a revenant.





	1. Desolate

**Author's Note:**

> boy this was hard to birth. for this first part i listened to the [theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViJfU7hJOxE) of the movie 'womb' (which also visually inspired the fic), and the second part, i listened to [this piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_4SrmKaCx4) on loop. for hours. days.

Ashes and sand.

Desolate.

The sand is so grey, it doesn’t resemble sand. Ash— the old world burned layers back to expose rotten flesh upon which the kingdom come’s foundations are built. A rickety wooden shack of chipped paint, standing on festered legs for when the cold tide returns to wash away the footprints of those who dare wander this far against the bite of the wind and the pinpricks of water spray.

There is only a charred remnant of what must have been a hut on the beach, grey as the sand, grey as the sea, and grey as the sky behind. The dunes in the distance sit hunching like guards, a border between, a gate to perdition in the language of 7.92mm rounds. And the hut, a lonely fortress in this desolate place, few windows, mould eating away the wooden planks, green blight— perhaps the castle of a lone sniper gone rouge with thirst for enemy blood, until one night, when the moon painted the ash of the beach to silver, he fell asleep, and he never woke as the world around him burned to dust, black smoke in his lungs escorting him to somewhere else, a place Collins, too, sees in his dreams— it still calls for him some nights when he wakes up in his memories.

Now only the carcass remains, and offers no shelter from the banshee wind that pierces his blue coat, moist from the spray of the sea. His lips taste slightly of salt, his face wet. Boots sink into the sand, as the tide reluctantly laps at his soles, like a stray dog at another stray soul.

Memories of hot days in the sun-soaked Blue come forth, its fine yellow grains Collins can still feel slipping between his fingers, unlike this ashen beach in Northern France, shallow quicksand of promises that want Collins to stay a little longer.

Sitting on a patch of grass on top of the dunes, Collins watches as the old horizon gives way for the bottom of the sky, furious reds following the sunset. His watch ticks away with the seconds, it’s as though he’s never waited five years for a closure.

In that time, Collins has flown above deserts as golden as the wedding band on his ring finger, should he have married sweet Emma Griffiths, and he has flown above water as blue as the chip of sapphire sitting in her medallion, had he not left his heart with someone else before hearing Emma sing in a bar too filthy for her beauty, among the drunken shouts of Collins’ company on weekend leave. But all sweet Emma got were pieces of him that her slender fingers could not mend back together, for that Collins had lost his other half on a shore just like this— a shore that reminded him so much of his home, its dullness more than just a comforting sight. All that is lost.

The grey clouds break apart under the might of the dying sun, and the wind quietens too, holding its breath. Paper crinkles in Collins’ hands as he unfolds it, for the umpteenth time since its arrival in his possession. The ink is faint, as if the words have faded from being read over so many times in such a short period, Collins sees the message even when his eyes are closed.

Telegram by the RAF from a London post office. Visual identification needed— based on the uniform, the dead body belongs to a RAF pilot from group No. 11, found near a recently liberated POW camp in west Germany.

Escaped a day or two before Allied troops raided the place. Weather just cold enough. Along with a dozen other bodies, lay on a field, frozen. Full of holes. Hopeless. Afraid— of the orders given to the guards.

How desperate must they have been, Collins wonders, a lump in his throat, because Farrier had never once lost hope. Farrier, who, in the end, cracked as well.

It has to be Farrier. It can’t be anyone else. If only it was someone else from their group, an ill thought, Collins knows, yet he can’t help.

“You fool,” Collins chokes, and the wind sucks the sobs right out of his lungs. It tries to tear the telegram out of his hands, too, but that, Collins holds on for dear life. “Just a few more days. Why couldn’t you just sit tight—”

He wails, and that too, the wind swallows up, a mercy Collins needed sooner than now.

 

Piss-poor French gets him to the right address, and the driver doesn’t return the change, almost as much as the fare itself, but Collins doesn’t need the money, he doesn’t wait for it, he’s not staying in this bloody town a night longer. If not the reason why he’d gotten on the first boat bound for Calais, then the regional hospital and what might lie inside would be the reason for Collins’ untimely departure without a result— he’s not the only one from his group who can identify Farrier, he was just the first one to respond.

He takes his sweet time up the steps, and he stops before the entrance, reluctant to open the door. The telegram inside his fist in his pocket burns his palm, the address and the time carved into his body.

The hospital is strangely deserted this close to the end of the war, yet it smells familiar, the scent Collins would never forget— he’s smelled it one too many times in the past years, and it’s only Farrier who can ever bring Collins back to this place of death.

The nurse at the front desk speaks not a word of English, but she understands just enough to stand up and leave, returning a few minutes later in tow with a doctor, who, much to Collins’ relief, can hold a conversation well enough. They don’t speak on the way to the basement though, no need for empty words, and at the bottom of the stairs Collins feels short on breath. He braces a hand against the wall, and the doctor waits for him patiently a few steps ahead, as if he knew Collins’ whole story and his relationship with the unclaimed dead body waiting in one of the rooms down the quiet hallway.

The battlefield is chaos and fire and death, but the morgue is calm and cold and death. Collins wants to turn around and run away, just like he remembers wanting to run away before his first real sortie, a patrol down the coast, not to throw him to the veterans of the Luftwaffe waiting to take a bite out of young British boys, but to give him a taste of returning to the airbase and have him want more— Farrier had been there, experienced enough to make the new pilots itching to try their fresh wings feel the false security of when flying the trainer with an instructor behind their backs. No handholding, no patronizing _nothing will happen_ , but it was enough to get them through, and keep their breakfast in their stomach until they made it to the lavvy after debriefing.

Farrier is here, too, a sleeping hero lying under not a mountain but wrapped in a white blanket stained of earth in which they dragged him across a country, and no longer will he come to the aid of Britain in times of need. The ravens are gone, but the king under the mountain sleeps forever, soon to be returned and buried in the soil of his hometown, should Collins give truth to his delusions.

Collins stops in the doorway, restless hands folding his hat over and over as he stares at the covered body laid upon a table for display. He steps closer, and he feels the wind tear at his face and the grey sand get into his eyes. A grey black and white cloud casts shadow on the beach as it gracefully flies overhead, and it lands enveloped in grey smoke and flames as orange as the sunset.

_“I promise I’ll take you to my hometown once we get the chance— I’ll show you the apple orchard where we used to play hide and seek, and the nearby seacoast,” Collins sighed, his yearn turning into cold mist and smoke. “From that beach, you just— feel like you’re standing on the edge of the world and nothing else matters. It’s a different beach.”_

_Farrier hummed, voice raspy from the cigarette and from always listening. “Places like that bring up fine lads.”_

_“You’ll love it,” Collins said, fighting the smile from Farrier’s hidden compliment. He coughed once as he stubbed his fag into the windowsill. “I promise.”_

_“Don’t promise things you know you can’t keep.”_

_“I intend to keep it,” Collins said, looking at the side of Farrier’s face. He watched as the other pilot stared at the dark sky for a few moments, and greeted Farrier’s cold fingers in his own, warm palm._

“It’s not him.”

“Pardon?” the doctor asks, hands still holding onto the blanket he’s just rolled down as unceremoniously as one could, revealing bones sticking out from under paper thin skin, sharp cheekbones, sunken face, dark eyelids. Collins has never seen death be so— calm. So clean.

He can’t recognize the man. He falters, and reaches inside his coat in a moment of self-doubt.

“I— I’ve never seen this person,” he stutters, folding out a stained photograph. His eyes jump between the man lying before him, and the faces of his group, blurry in his memory by now, but sharp on the photo. “I don’t know him.”

He hands the photograph to the doctor, and Collins stares at this unknown man— lips and nose share similarity with Farrier’s, but it can’t be the pilot.

“Do you wish to take a look at his clothes?” the doctor asks, handing the photograph back. He motions for a desk, and a pile of folded clothes on top of it. The Irving jacket, and the off-white sweater are striking, but it’s the folded piece of yellowed paper lying next to them that Collins picks up— most of the words are blurred from getting wet and being dried too many times, but Collins can make out just enough; Uxbridge, No. 11 group, and the name of their Group Captain— what must have made them think it was an important person.

Collins grabs the jacket and pats along the inside until he finds what he is looking for.

When he asks for something sharp, hand stretched towards the doctor expectantly, he gets a scalpel and a confused look from the Frenchman, but Collins ignores it, folds out one side of the jacket, and makes a long cut along the seam behind the zipper. He feels around the secret pocket until his fingertips find a slightly crumpled paper that he pulls out.

_The black smoke coming from the engine of Farrier’s Hurricane joined the dark clouds as he appeared from the sky last, the other three surviving planes from his flight already rolling towards the hangars for a post-mission check-up. Collins watched with shaking legs as Farrier tried to align his plane to the landing strip._

_Pride exploded in Collins’ chest when Farrier landed as if nothing had been obscuring his sight, and he was running down wet tarmac towards Farrier even before the crippled Hurricane came to a halt. By the time he jumped on the wing full of holes, Farrier had already slid back the canopy and was trying to climb out. From the smoke, Collins could barely see and breathe, but somehow he managed to pull Farrier out of the cockpit, his Irving jacket tearing loudly. They both stumbled off the wing onto the hard asphalt, and there were hands on them, dragging them away from the plane as it went up in flames._

_Farrier coughed as he sat up, only his eyes protected by his goggles not completely black from the soot._

_“Do you suppose I’m getting a Spitfire now?” he spoke up, earning scoffs and chuckles from those around them._

_A few days later, as Collins prepared for a night patrol, he saw Farrier with his jacket on his lap, trying to thread a needle. Buttoning up his shirt, he stepped up to Farrier and grabbed the needle and the thread out of his grasp._

_“Just— have it your way,” Farrier said, throwing his hands into the air in submission._

_“Apologies,” Collins said as he sat down next to Farrier on his cot and pulled the jacket into his own lap, quickly finding the seam that needed sewing behind the zipper. “It was painful to watch you struggle with such a greatly strenuous task.”_

_Farrier grumbled and watched quietly as Collins began and then stopped short after two stitches, and curiously reached inside the torn fabric. He pulled out a photograph until he recognized himself standing next to Farrier in front of his newly issued Spitfire._

_Farrier held his gaze, and for a moment, they were lost in their own world until a thump coming from another room brought them to their senses._

_“I’ve got a sortie,” Collins stood up haphazardly and grabbed his own jacket. Farrier just nodded at him, but the redness of the shell of his ears and the photograph tucked safely in the jacket above Farrier’s heart were as good a confession as a man in Collins’ situation could get._

Collins looks at Farrier’s crumpled face on the photograph, and wordlessly, he slides it into his pocket. He glances at the man lying on the table, and finally decides.

“These are my mate’s clothes,” Collins says, turning to the doctor who’s been staring at him with his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “I don’t know why this bloke was wearing them, though.”

“So you don’t know this person?”

Collins shakes his head, and leaves the hospital clutching Farrier’s jacket to his chest, heart bleeding in so much pain he is grateful for the darkness of the night to hide away his tears, and for the garment to muffle his sobs.


	2. Solace

The apple orchard in September is Collins’ favourite, on cloudless days, when the afternoon sun drenches everything in a soft yellow glow, a place of ancient magic that has always attracted Collins even as a kid and fed him a lifetime of adventurousness. The grass is still lively, just like the rustling leaves as they whisper in the gentle breeze that carries a cavalcade of scents, floral and something sweet that has never failed to remind Collins of home.

He takes a deep breath, lying on the ground, grass tickles his cheeks and ants crawl on his ankles, and in his mind, he wanders along a cold, grey beach on the other side of the Channel, still looking for Farrier and his plane.

Nothing more he can do— he’s searched and he’s hoped, and now the only thing he can do is keep it in his dreams and remember. People around him have taken the first step of overcoming their wounds, while Collins still frisks about in the same place, not quite ready to let go just yet. His family— will never understand, and his friends, though equally scarred, will never know.

No one will ever know. Farrier will be forever remembered as a hero, one of the surviving pilots to have helped hundreds of thousands that week— but no one will remember the man Collins had fallen in love with; a man of few words for his friends, but many bullets for his enemies, the man who studied the language of birds in his free time, and even attempted to do the impossible and teach Collins to whistle, the man who had to be dragged to the pub when they were on leave, but chugged a pint quicker than anyone else, the man who loved to sing along but would never start the song, and the man who was just like Collins, two alone in a dangerous secret of messages hidden in bird calls that only Collins could understand, and subtle touches and glances that meant more than just.

Six short months with Farrier for six long years without him, Collins would bear the pain if it meant he will never forget. So long the grey beach is there, Collins can wander.

A fallen branch creaks, an apple orchard blooms in the cold sand, and there’s a dog licking Collins’ face, waking him from his shallow slumber.

He sits up, gently pushing the dog away, and he hears laughter from behind. He turns around.

“Emma,” Collins greets the woman, stroking the dog behind its ear absentmindedly. The motion helps him remember that he’s back home, the war is more or less over, and the only plane he will ever fly sits dismantled in the barn, waiting for him to return to her.

“There you are,” Emma says, giggling. She covers her mouth with a hand. The band around her ring finger is as golden as the dog’s fur Collins sinks his fingers into. His own hand is adorned not with a ring, but the dull memory of a bullet that took his little finger.

Some moments, especially when Emma sings, Collins wishes he could have his brother’s calloused, but unscarred hands.

Emma watches as Collins stands up. “We were looking for you.”

“Me?” Collins asks, patting down the back of his thighs. “Why?”

“You’ve got a visitor,” Emma announces with a smile, her gentle fingers playing with the frilly collar of her bright dress. Sometimes it’s still awkward when they are left alone, their brief relationship a crisp memory of two desperate people looking for something the other could not give them, but Collins would rather have this than any other version— Emma, his sister-in-law, happily married to his older brother.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone,” Collins tips his head to the side, wondering.

“Well then,” Emma says, leaning down to scratch the head of her dog, “you should hurry back and save our dear visitor from one of those boring hunting stories of Harry’s.”

Collins lets out a laugh, gives Emma a smile, and leaves, breaking into a jog towards his parents’ home until Emma calls after him.

“Don’t tell your brother I said his hunting stories are boring!”

Collins waves at her. “Your secret’s safe with me!” He turns around again, and crosses the small orchard, only a shadow of its former self before the war, and the large, empty field of tall grass and wild flowers, sitting unused, waiting for one of the Collins boys to have a use of it.

A bird calls from the nearby forest, and Collins stops for a moment to listen. When another call comes, Collins sighs, tweets of a grey wagtail too distinct to mistake them for Farrier’s imitations of a cooing dove or the hoots of a barn owl. This wagtail is not serenading Collins, but another bird.

Collins still remembers those rainy and foggy afternoons when the others would cheer as Farrier imitated the calls of almost every bird the others could think of, and the two of them would stare at each other from across the room, pencil in Collins’ hand stuck on a word as he let himself be serenaded by Farrier in plain sight, entertainment for the others, but a love song for Collins.

A part of him wishes Farrier was behind every bird call coming from the forest, it’s a ridiculous wish he knows, but one that soothes him on nights when he desires to wander out into the woods and never come back.

Collins nears his parents’ large home from the side, driveway empty of automobiles— he wonders if Harry has driven the visitor away with his mundane stories about his hunting trips Collins always refused the invitations to.

“Harry?” Collins calls out as he enters the spacious living room. Only an empty cup on the coffee table indicates that people have been there. He hears footsteps from the kitchen, and he nods at his brother as a greeting.

“Strange friend you’ve got there, little brother,” Harry says, reaching for the last cup. Collins follows Harry into the kitchen quietly.

“Who is it?” he asks, somewhat impatient. Harry runs the sink for a moment before he shrugs, washing the cups, they clink loudly in the sink.

“Didn’t say his name,” Harry says. “Just that he was a friend of yours. Served with you in the RAF.”

“I served with a lot of men,” Collins notes, and then he sighs. Harry wouldn’t understand what it meant to serve with other men, in the war, an unfixable dent in their relationship Harry would never let him live down for reasons Collins couldn’t help. “Where did he go?”

“Outside. For a smoke,” he says. “Emma?”

“The orchard,” Collins says, and he opens his mouth to say something else— to apologize, to thank Harry, but in the end, he leaves through the back entrance without a word, leaving the same way they always end their conversations— unresolved differences, driving them farther and farther apart from each other.

The porch empty, Collins looks around the back garden, and decides to head to the orchard. He notes the still smoking stub in the ash tray set on the small table.

On the way to the long rows of apple trees, he runs into Emma and her dog, and she places a hand on Collins’ chest with a knowing smile before Collins can open his mouth.

“He’s at the beach,” she says, dog circling around them, tail wagging excitedly. “He said you told him about it and he wanted to see it with his own eyes.”

The world slows down, and Collins blinks at Emma in confusion. His ears begin to ring loudly, with thoughts exciting and terrifying, and Collins finds himself running through the orchard towards the beach until Emma yells after him, halting Collins in his haste to see—

“Your secret’s safe with me!” Emma shouts Collins’ words at him, and she waves, laughing, and Collins can feel the wind in his face as he runs fast as he can, stumbling in patches of grass and rocks invisible to him.

Before his eyes he can only see the grey beach and Farrier walking down the coastline, as the sea laps at his shoes, until Collins finally reaches the edge of the grass where the sand takes over, and there are footprints leading to a dark shape down the beach, walking with a visible limp.

The shout stops in Collins’ throat as he even forgets to breathe, and he stumbles again as he scrambles down the slight slope, running along the footprints, all the world and sounds muted. His heart beats out of his chest not from the running, but at the sight of the person growing large, human-sized as Collins nears him.

He stops a good ten meters away from the other person, and Collins trembles, from the exhaustion of running so fast after so long without any physical training, from the terror of the possibility that it’s not really Farrier standing before him, but another person, from the impeding disappointment that Collins doesn’t know whether his heart can bear anymore.

He swallows, and with trembling lips, he utters: “Farrier?”

The other man hesitates, and then turns his head to the side quietly, and before his eyes can fall on Collins, Collins is behind him, grabbing him by the shoulder and jerking him around into a tight hug.

“You’re alive,” Collins whimpers, fisting the back of Farrier’s RAF dress, his neck strains as he buries his face into Farrier’s collar. “You’re here.”

“I am,” Farrier says quietly, and when his arms close around Collins’ waist, it all comes crashing down. Collins’ knees give away, and they both end up on the ground, clutching onto one another. Collins lets his tears fall, six years of suppressed sorrow ending up in a wet patch on Farrier’s shoulder, and Farrier lets out a laugh, shoulders shaking.

Farrier then groans and shifts, and they topple to the side in a heap, and Collins stares at his face without blinking for so long he can feel his eyes drying in the salty wind, stinging worse than his tears that continue to quietly roll down his cheeks. The waves reach their feet.

“I could’ve sent letters from the prison,” Farrier says, and Collins’ heart tightens. He wants to say it’s okay, he understands, he’d thought Farrier was dead, but he can’t bring himself to do so. “I didn’t know what to tell you.”

“I thought you died in Dunkirk,” Collins whispers, sand on his lips.

He sees Farrier swallow deeply. “I should’ve written to you.”

“They found a man wearing your clothes,” Collins continues, hardly focusing on what Farrier just said to him. The sea laps at their waists now. Collins places his hand between them, sinking his fingers into the sand to stop himself from touching Farrier’s face— shattering him, this image.

“The guards were ordered to shoot the prisoners after they found out the Yanks were closing in— people lost their heads. I lost my jacket.”

“I knew you wouldn’t—” Collins laughs, water tickling his fingers. He scoots closer, sand getting under his soiled shirt. Even as he shivers from the cold sea, even as he feels Farrier take his right hand and lift it into the air, Collins struggles to convince himself he’s awake.

He’s dreamed of Farrier’s return so many times, they met in so many different places in so many different ways, he’s lost count. He’s met Farrier in a pub in London, piss-drunk, he’s met him in a hospital, unrecognizable, and on the street, walking past each other, and in the air, between the clouds, and in an office getting medals for his bravery and sacrifice, and in German forests, running from prison guards, and in Collins’ childhood room, in love, and in the apple orchard, kissing each other, and in a bed lying next to each other, spent, and never once did Collins imagine meeting him on a grey beach just like the one that had taken Farrier from him six years ago.

“I thought she was your wife,” Farrier says, pressing a finger to Collins’ palm.

“She was just a person to write home to. For a few months, that is, until she met my brother.” There is no bitterness in Collins— when he’d read Emma’s letter, honest words he’d been grateful for, he folded it neatly the way she’d folded it for him, and burned it above his lighter. His mates patted him on the back as consolation, and got words of understanding from those who’d gone through the same, but Collins, for most part, felt relieved— his brother had less of a chance to die and leave Emma behind.

His brother wasn’t in love with a dead man who he could only refer to as _‘a mate I used to fly with in the beginning.’_

“ _’My Dearest Emma’_ ,” Collins begins, and Farrier listens. He doesn’t release Collins’ hand. “ _’I am well and alive, as you can see. Nothing much has happened since my last letter. I have acquired a tan I never knew my skin was capable of, though, but fortunately the redness has disappeared. I think you would find the desert an interesting place. Days are unbearably hot, but nights are bone-chilling. It’s a struggle, yet somehow I have gotten used to it. I like it, even. Still, nothing compares to when I imagine lying in your soft embrace. I only wish you were here. I only wish I could hear you sing. I am sure the others would love to hear you as I keep telling them how beautifully you always serenaded our love. Your dearest, Collins’_.”

Farrier closes his eyes as the water washes past his face, and Collins can feel it on his cheeks as well, or maybe it’s his tears again, now he suddenly remembers those days in the desert when he addressed his letters to Emma, but wrote his words to Farrier to appease his sorrow that no reply penned in Emma’s elegant cursive could relieve.

“ _’My darling boy’_ ,” Farrier says quietly, as if he intended the waves to wash away his words. “ _’I know I should not write these lines as it puts both of us at great risk, but I have spent so long with only the thought of you, I feel as though I will go mad should I not place my unvoiced love unto this letter. I have survived and am held captive in a POW camp somewhere in Germany. They treat us humanely, for most part. I have tried to escape three times, and three times were I transferred to a different camp._

“ _’Soon, the news of an advancing American battalion will reach the guards, and they will be ordered to shoot us. In the chaos, many prisoners will try to escape, and someone will knock me out in a corner, thus saving my life, but not without taking my jacket. You will meet this person dead in a hospital, but you will know it’s not me. You will return home with my jacket, and you will live your life in your hometown, the photograph of us safe somewhere you can always look at it._

“ _’And I, after a year spent in hospitals trying to learn again how to walk with a missing leg, I will return to you, and fulfil your promise to me. And when we lie on the beach where you’ve always wanted to take me, I will ask you to promise me something.’’_ ”

Collins blinks away his tears and the sea, and he shifts even closer to Farrier, their noses touching. The reality of their meeting finally settles into the pit of his stomach, like agitated mud settling down into the bottom of a lake.

“What is it?” Collins whispers and finally he touches Farrier’s face, the sharpness of his jaw and the hill of his cheekbone fitting into the cup of his palm like two pieces of a puzzle they have spent so long creating.

“I want to fly with you again.”

Sunset burns on the sky, orange as flames and red as blood, and in its weak glow, Farrier’s eyes are grey as the beach that swallows their secrets, grey as the sea that washes away their fears, and grey as the sky that drips September colours and blush onto their cheeks.

Solace.

They will turn to ashes, and meld into the sand on the grey beach together. At the edge of the world, nothing else matters.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy. this took me some time.

**Author's Note:**

> womb is a f-cked up movie. it will likely stay with me for many years. watch it.
> 
> you can find me @gyunikum on twitter, come and say hello.


End file.
